`Big Time' Whale Watching

Family Adventures

Humpback Gang Treats Spectators To Splashy Show

Museum Extends Trips

March 02, 1995|By MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON Daily Press

Most tourists head to Virginia Beach for the long, hot days of summer.

Young whales like it best when the days are short and cold.

Loitering in the ocean swells a few hundred yards offshore, a gang of at least 20 adolescent humpbacks has spent much of the past two months grazing in the anchovy-rich waters around the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

Why swim all the way to the winter breeding grounds in the Caribbean, after all, when you haven't got a chance for a date?

The lazy teen-age party that's resulted has brought more whales than ever to the Virginia coast, at least by modern standards. It's also drawn more than 13,000 spectators to the Virginia Marine Science Museum's winter whale-watching trips - all eager to witness the larger-than-life antics of these 30-foot-long mammals.

"Some of the humpbacks have been very acrobatic and showy. They breach - that means come up out of the water - and they flap their tails."

The splashy performers have been remarkably consistent, too, showing up for 85 percent of the more than 200 boat trips the museum has launched this season.

Since beginning back in mid-January, the program has been extended three times, with the last trips now scheduled to take place March 13, Clements says.

The long winter stopover has perplexed the museum's scientists, but no more so than the fact that the whales have showed up at all.

No humpback sightings were recorded off the Virginia coast before 1991, Clements says. Despite returning in larger numbers several times since then, last year's trickle of bus-sized visitors was disappointingly slow.

"We're still in the early stages of collecting data, of dating and identifying the whales that return, and speculating about what's going on," Clements says.

"This year we've counted eight whales we hadn't seen before. It was a whole new crop of juveniles."

* The Virginia Marine Science Museum's whale-watching trips will continue Friday through Monday through March 13. The two-hour trips leave from the Virginia Beach Fishing Center at Rudee Inlet and sail north or south just offshore, depending upon the latest sightings. Departure times vary. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for children 11 and younger. Reservations are required. Call 437-4949.